Columbia officials meet with Occupy group

Occupy Columbia protestors marched to Columbia City Hall to meet with officials Tuesday.

Mayor Steve Benjamin met with the group to discuss safety issues and told them he would work to ease restrictions on the use of overnight tents. The group went to a City Council meeting to protest plans to potentially build a Wal-Mart at the Capitol City Baseball Stadium, now home to the Columbia Blowfish.

An online stream of the march showed protestors shouting “Wal-Mart destroys small business” in unison, as they made way to the council to share their concerns. In the meeting Columbia City Council agreed to increase transparency in its planning process.

Occupy Columbia has also relased their first online ad, and plans to run it on television in the future. Declared “The People’s Lobby”, the ad states the creed of the occupants: “We the occupiers, declare the political system broken, We are the people’s lobby, We are the 99%!”.